Our Manifestos

The Digital Tide Creeps Up On TV

Last weekend I sat down to watch the Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Juventus. Historically, this has been a prime example of ‘Event TV’; a huge must-watch sporting occasion – shown live on broadcast networks. A genre that traditional broadcasters have held up as a final unassailable bastion against the efforts of Silicon Valley to take over the living room. However, no longer it seems.

After scrolling around and finding that only BT was showing the game, the familiar complexities of navigating today’s TV landscape began. Although a BT customer, I didn’t have access to the right package but I noticed its coverage was live and free on YouTube. With multiple remotes in hand I switched from Freeview via a Humax box to the TV apps on my Sony TV. I then launched YouTube and fiddled with the sound settings and there it was: full-screen UCL action.

Now while far from being a slick user-experience this felt like a moment when the tech titans had finally breached the last defences of traditional broadcasting. It’s been a long time coming with Google launching its first salvoes at the traditional broadcasters almost ten years ago before launching into its ownhardware venture with Sony. Since then, there have been...

...a myriad of twists and turns. However the direction of travel has been one way with the powerful tides of networked media always flowing in favour of San Jose's giants.

In the Digital Strategy Sessions we run, we look at the underlying trends that drive the direction of these tidal changes including how networked media is affecting modern TV in ways we might not expect. Even if, by now, we should.

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a technological revolution that will have to be embraced whether we like it or not, the so called technology
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